GM tomato could reduce cancer risk

By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent

12:00AM BST 01 May 2001

A GENETICALLY modified tomato that could help reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease has been created by British food scientists.

The fruit carries a gene normally found in petunias that gives its peel higher than normal levels of flavonols. These powerful antioxidants help mop up free radicals - destructive molecules that damage cells and hasten ageing.

Foods rich in flavonols include onions and tea. Tomatoes naturally have the compounds in their skin, but at far lower concentrations. The GM tomato skin had a 78 fold increase in flavonol levels, putting it on a par with onions, the team reports in Nature Biotechnology.

Taste was not affected, and 65 per cent of the flavonols were retained when the tomatoes were turned into paste. The scientists, led by Dr Martine Verhoeyen, from Unilever Research at Sharnbrook, Beds, said the research could lead to "functional" tomato-based food products such as pizza.

One type of flavonol, quercetin glycoside, was "significantly increased" in the peel of the modified tomatoes.